Free The Given by Vicki Pettersson Page B

alive for now, but anything could change that, a moment when he made the wrong step . . . or one in which he didn’t act at all. He just needed to get her out of there, he thought, lifting her deadweight into his arms. Then they could figure out what to do next.
    As long as it included him not leaving her side until this thing was over.
    K it wasn’t entirely unaware of her surroundings. Although her senses were blunted, numbness coating everything from her fingertips to her tongue to the eyes shaking in her head, she still felt the cold air envelop her as Grif carried her outside. It attacked her skin in sharp contrast to the reassuring warmth of his arms around hers, and his chest felt almost hot against her cheek. She was scared by Barbara’s death, and shocked by the changes writhing like snakes inside her own body, but somehow she also felt safe.
    Kit had grown up afraid. When your mother falls fatally ill when you are twelve, and your father is murdered four years later, it rather deepens the suspicion that the world is not a safe place. She’d fought the effects of that by deliberately choosing things that, while not safe, were inherently good.
    Her job was good. She fought to uncover the wrongs and ills in the world, and make it a better place through fantastic reportage. She might not be able to change anything on a large scale—nothing globally or cosmically, like Grif—but she could do her part, one story and one person at a time.
    She also chose her attitude. The swing skirts and crinoline and Betty bangs were more than just show. When you walk around the world attempting to make it a brighter and better place, sometimes a bit of that shine actually takes hold. So now, she chose to focus on the feeling of safety as if it was a talisman, and after a few more seconds she was able to focus her eyes, her mind, and her other senses outward as well.
    â€œPut me down,” she rasped when they were tucked around the back of a nearby steakhouse. Grif obliged wordlessly . . . and Kit doubled over. Her legs buckled and her knees scraped the pavement, but Grif caught her under her arms once more, and again, his contrasting warmth made all the difference in the world. His arms were strong and firm around her shoulders, and the Sen-Sen that always scented his breath wafted over her as he spoke soothing words in her ear.
    I’m in shock, Kit realized, as one last shudder numbed her core and reverberated out through her limbs. From the moment the first gunshot had roared through the suite, she’d been wondering when the shakes would start. Yet the subsequent jolts—Barbara’s body splayed on the floor, the surefire instinct that the killer was coming for Kit next, and then Grif’s almost immediate arrival—had delayed the onset, at least for a bit.
    She’d have chided herself for falling apart in front of Grif—of course, he was as coolly assessing as ever—but then why would he mind after walking in on such a grisly murder? He could see death coming and going. He practically held the door open for it every time.
    Kit realized her teeth were chattering, and she clenched her jaw shut and tried to right herself again. Grif released her only after he saw that she was stable, and she caught one last whiff of his pomade as he steadied her on her feet. Then it, and the security of his arms, was gone.
    â€œWhat?” she said, realizing he’d been speaking. She rubbed her nose, hating the way gunpowder clung to the soft lining inside.
    â€œWe’ll get somewhere safe and work it out . . .” Grif was saying, taking on most of her weight as he pulled her forward. Here he was, after so many months of her wishing it to be so. Absent, and then there. A memory and then her reality, once again. That alone was enough to make her dizzy. It also made her want to laugh and cry at the same time . . . though that could have just been the